


dear shadow, alive and well (how can the body die?)

by Kittleskittle



Series: Aloy, Nil, and Death [1]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Character Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, funeral rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23077102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittleskittle/pseuds/Kittleskittle
Summary: Aloy comes upon Nil as he's dying.
Relationships: Aloy/Nil (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Series: Aloy, Nil, and Death [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662583
Comments: 13
Kudos: 34





	dear shadow, alive and well (how can the body die?)

**Author's Note:**

> This is dark, guys. Seriously. Content warnings for major character death, blood, and handling of a body. Please mind them.

The sun has just begun to set when she stumbles upon him.

He sits propped up against the trunk of a tree, crimson stalks of tall grass cushioning him in a gentle embrace. Dappled shadows from the light streaming through the leaves above pepper him, his skin warmed by the glow of the twilight, and a tentative smile blooms on her lips. She steps forward to greet him but stops short as he comes fully into view.

His armor is gone, and the length of his red scarf is clutched against his abdomen. The patterned fabric is so soaked through with his own blood that it's nearly black, and still more oozes down the swell of his cheek from the crumpled ruin of what used to be his left eye. At her sharp exhalation, his remaining pale eye rolls to meet hers - and beyond the agony creasing it, there is budding relief.

"...Nil?"

"Aloy." He coughs out a hoarse chuckle. "So, she finally finds me at the hour of my death."

She rushes to his side and kneels before him, pressing her palms against his stomach. Hot tears of frustration sting in her eyes as blood continues to well up, even through the fabric, and on to her hands. Still, she persists until they are slick and stained red to the wrists, stubbornly ignoring the rasping wheeze of his breathing and the heart-rending way the bleeding won't stop, no matter how much pressure she applies.

"It's no use," he says quietly. "Don't waste your tears - this is a fitting end for me. Ambushed by filth, left to die alone."

"Don't say that. I'm going to find a way to help you," she grits out, winding an arm around his shoulder to prop him up. Maybe if she can get more leverage, find a better angle -

"But because of you, I can die a better man," he says, bringing a trembling hand up to clutch at her shoulder. He's _smiling_ , truly smiling, and her stomach squeezes so hard that a wave of intense nausea briefly washes over her. "You gave me purpose, Aloy. After Meridian, your words lived in the space between my ribcage and heart as a guiding compass, and everything I did, I did in your name. To pass into darkness with you by my side is a precious gift."

"No, Nil." His name comes out as a sob. "I can figure this out, I can _save_ you, I can-"

"Aloy," he says gently, "you already have."

She bends over until her forehead is pressed against the space between his neck and shoulder, and it isn't long before she's quivering as violently as he is. His arms circle around her, and she cries and screams and begs until there's nothing left inside of her but numb realization. It's too little, too late.

Icy fingers slide under her chin, and he lifts her head. There's only peace written into the lines of his face as he tilts forward and grazes his lips over hers, feather-light. They taste of blood.

She shudders and kisses him back, desperate and hard, as if the force of it can somehow compel him to stay with her. But eventually, he pulls away.

"I wanted to tell you," he whispers as he settles back against the tree. He cradles her to his chest and stares at the canopy of leaves above them with a glassy eye. The stars have just begun to come out, and they're peeking and winking through the branches like so many jewels. "There's so much...I wanted..."

He doesn't speak anymore after that. A few moments pass, and Aloy lifts her head. 

"Nil?"

She stares up into that unseeing grey eye as the warmth drains from his face - it is strange, she thinks distantly, to describe a face belonging to a man such as Nil in terms of warmth. When his arms around her grow cold, she gets up and goes to work.

\--

She cares for him in the Nora tradition, as a mother or lover would.

With water from a nearby stream, she painstakingly cleans him by firelight until any evidence of the mud and congealed blood that had caked his pallid skin has run into the dirt. She washes his black hair until it's soft and shining, brushing her fingers through the silky strands until they're dry, commiting to memory the way they fall to frame the left side of his face. The entire time, she hums lullabies and sacred songs taught to her long ago by Rost, about people and animals and the earth going to sleep and submitting to the loving embrace of the All-Mother. She's never believed in any of it, but there is comfort in ritual, so she sings.

Once his body is pristine, she allows herself time to lay beside him in a cruel imitation of what she had daydreamed only in her most secret moments - a dream only now realized with the impassible expanse of death between them. She touches him then, her fingertips running over the angle of his cheek and across the breadth of his still chest. It's almost too easy to pretend that he's only sleeping, that he could wake at any moment, his lips twisted into his usual sardonic smirk as he kisses her once more. Instead, it's she who kisses him a final time, her lips brushing over his forehead tenderly.

Digging his grave takes the rest of the night. She endures the physical labor, the soul-deep exhaustion, without complaint. 

His scarf, heavy with drying blood, becomes his burial shroud, and though his body has grown stiff, she somehow manages to drag him into the ground. After a brief search, she had discovered the remnants of Voice of Our Teeth, broken into shards of metal and wood and scattered among the brush, and she rests what she could find on his chest. A moment of consideration later, she takes back a couple of the bow's stained red feathers and weaves them into her hair.

When she climbs out of the earth, covered head to toe in blood and sweat and soil, she looks down upon the abstract shape of his covered form for several minutes. Then, she begins to blanket him with dirt. 

Aloy buries Nil, the man she has come to love, in a peaceful meadow cut through with slashes of Ochrebloom. She marks his grave with an arrangement of stones, then studies it with a frown - something is still missing, so she pulls several colorful beads from her hair and presses them into the earth. 

As she finishes, the day is dawning clear and bright, banishing the shadows and darkness of the long night. Aloy sinks to her knees, curls up in the downy grass alongside Nil's grave, and is still. When she gazes far away over distant mountains at the climbing sun, the tears finally come, streaking down her face in messy streams. The weight of her loss and everything she has left unsaid leaves her with a crushing emptiness that sucks the air from her lungs until she's left gasping, and she howls and sobs and heaves and digs her fingernails helplessly into the upturned dirt. 

Hours pass, and she lays unmoving beside his grave. The sun is high in the sky when she finally rises to her feet, her eyes swollen and aching, her body weary and sore.

It takes her even longer to leave, and it is dusk once again before she finally musters enough strength to move her feet forward even a single step. More time passes, and it gets a little easier. Eventually, Aloy is swallowed by the forest, her shadow trailing faithfully behind her as she walks away.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what possessed me to write this, but have some ridiculously heavy angst. I think I've gotten all of it out of me, so I'm off to draw some soft Niloy now!!
> 
> Title is from Tiger Mountain Peasant Song by Fleet Foxes which is an amazing song and very Niloy so you should listen to it!!!


End file.
